Gendered Voices in Addressing Academic Needs Amongst Foster Children From Multicultural Society
Keywords:
gendered voices, linguistic features, academic needs, foster children, Malaysia
Abstract
Students from foster care are highly known for their poor performance in school and retention in grade. Nevertheless, female students in general achieve better academic results than male students. Studies on gendered differences among foster children seem to be scarce. Therefore, this study examines the use of linguistics features among male and female foster children in expressing their needs to improve their academic performance. For this purpose, semi-structured interview questions are used to gather data from foster children in Malaysia. The narratives elicited from the interviews are qualitatively analysed using content analysis approach. The data reveal that the use of adjectives, direct statements and accusation are common in the responses of both male and female foster children. However, the female foster children are more expressive in their responses as intensifying adverbs were frequently used when highlighting concern on their poor academic performance. Female foster children’s willingness to share problems and concern about their academic performance makes it easier for the teachers to assist. The male foster children, in contrast, tend to use denial as a strategy to conceal their problems and avoid displaying any signs of weaknesses. Ultimately, not voicing their problems may result in the lack of awareness amongst teachers and making it challenging for them to attend to the academic needs of these children.
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References
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Miller, P., Danaher, D., & Forbes, D. (1986). Sex-related strategies for coping with interpersonal conflict in children aged five and seven. Developmental Psychology, 22, 543–548.
Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook. London: Sage.
Nachiappan, S., Veeran, V. P., & Andi, H. K. (2012). Gender issues in Malaysian education: Factors influencing male and female students’ academic achievement through cognitive processes in public examinations. International Journal of Business and Social Research, 2(2), 133-150.
Nayak, A., & Kehily, M. J. (1996). Playing it straight: Masculinities, homophobias and schooling. Journal of Gender Studies, 5(2), 211-230.
Sunderland, J. (2000). Review article: Issues of language and gender in second and foreign language education. Language Teaching, 33(4), p. 203-223.
Talbot, M. (2010). Language and gender (2nd ed.). United Kingdom: Polity.
Tannen, D. (1990). Gender differences in topical coherence: Creating involvement in best friends' talk. Discourse Processes, 13(1), 73-90.
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Beutal, A. M., & Marini, M. M. (1995). Gender and values. American Sociology Review. 60(3), 436-448.
Blome, W. W. (1997). What happens to foster kids: Educational experiences of a random sample of foster care youth and a matched group of non-foster care youth. Child and Adolescent Social Work, 14(1), 41-53.
Brandis, W., & Henderson, D. (1970). Social class, language and communication. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Cameron, D. (1995). Rethinking language and gender studies: some issues for the 1990s. In S. Mills (Ed.), Language and gender: Interdisciplinary perspectives (pp. 31-44). London: Longman.
Courtney, M. E., & Dworsky, A. (2005). Midwest evaluation of the adult functioning of former foster youth: Outcomes at age 19. Chicago: Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago.
Creswell, J. W. (2012). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th ed.). Boston: Pearson.
Davies, J. (2003). Expressions of gender: An analysis of pupils’ gendered discourse styles in small group classroom discussions. Discourse and Society, 14(2), 115-132.
Entwisle, D. R., & Garvey, C. (1972). Verbal productivity and adjective usage. Language and Speech, 15(3), 288-298.
Gary, J. (1992). Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.
Ghazvini, S. D., & Khajehpour, M. (2011). Gender differences in factors affecting academic performance of high school students. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 15, 1040-1045.
Goodwin, M. H. (1980). Directive-response speech sequences in girls' and boys' task activities. In S. McConnell-Ginet, R. Borker, & R. Furman (Eds.), Women and Language in Literature and Society (pp. 157-173). New York: Praeger.
Gross, J. J., & John, O. P. (1998). Mapping the domain of expressivity: Multi-method evidence for a hierarchical model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 170-191.
Haas, A. (1979). Male and female spoken language differences: Stereotypes and evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 86(3), 616-626.
Holmes, J. (1995). Women, men and politeness. London: Longman
Hornoiu, D. (2002). Gendered language. Ovidius University Annals of Philology, 13, 115-134.
How, C. & Jariah Mohd. Jan. (2016). A sociopragmatic study of caregivers’ request speech act realization patterns in addressing the needs of foster children. Malaysian Journal of Languages and Linguistics, 5, 96-111.
Jabor, M. K., Machtmes, K., Kungu, K., Buntat, Y., & Nordin, M. S. (2011). The influence of age and gender on the students’ achievement in Mathematics. In International Conference on Social Science and Humanity: IPEDR (Vol. 5), (pp. 304-308). Singapore: IACSIT Press.
Jariah Mohd. Jan. (2002). Interpretation of gender in a Malaysian novel: The case of Salina. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 10(2), 143-152.
Jariah Mohd. Jan & How, C. (2015). Recognising barriers to academic achievement of foster children in Malaysia: A case study. Asia Pacific Journal of Contemporary Education and Communication Technology, 1(1), 37-43.
Jefferson, G. (1984). Transcript notation. In J. Heritage (Ed.), Structures of social interaction. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Joiner, L. L. (2001). Reaching out to foster children. American School Board Journal, 188(5), 30-34.
Katiliute, A. (2011). Language and Gender. Published bachelor thesis, Siauliai University, Lithuania.
Kramer, C. (1977). Perceptions of female and male speech. Language and speech, 20(2), 151-161.
Kring, A. M. & Gordon, A. H. (1998). Sex differences in emotion: Expression, experience, and physiology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(3), 686-703.
Kuang, C. H., Wong, N. L., & David, M. K. (2015). The perceived value of silence and spoken words in Malaysian Interactions. The Journal of the South East Asia Research centre for Communications and Humanities, 7(1), 53-70.
Ladegaard, H. J. (2004). Politeness in young children’s speech: context, peer group influence and pragmatic competence. Journal of Pragmatics, 36(11), 2003-2022.
Lakoff, R. T. (1975). Languages and woman’s place. New York: Harper and Row.
Leiter, J. & Johnson, M. C. (1997). Child maltreatment and school performance declines: An event-history analysis. American Educational Research Journal, 34, 563−589.
Maltz, D. N., & Borker, R. A. (1982). A cultural approach to male-female miscommunication. In J. Gumperz (Ed.), Language and social identity. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P.
Miller, P., Danaher, D., & Forbes, D. (1986). Sex-related strategies for coping with interpersonal conflict in children aged five and seven. Developmental Psychology, 22, 543–548.
Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook. London: Sage.
Nachiappan, S., Veeran, V. P., & Andi, H. K. (2012). Gender issues in Malaysian education: Factors influencing male and female students’ academic achievement through cognitive processes in public examinations. International Journal of Business and Social Research, 2(2), 133-150.
Nayak, A., & Kehily, M. J. (1996). Playing it straight: Masculinities, homophobias and schooling. Journal of Gender Studies, 5(2), 211-230.
Sunderland, J. (2000). Review article: Issues of language and gender in second and foreign language education. Language Teaching, 33(4), p. 203-223.
Talbot, M. (2010). Language and gender (2nd ed.). United Kingdom: Polity.
Tannen, D. (1990). Gender differences in topical coherence: Creating involvement in best friends' talk. Discourse Processes, 13(1), 73-90.
Torppa, C. (2010). Gender issues: Communication differences in interpersonal relationships. Family and Consumer Science. Retrieved 11 May 2016, from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.230.8430&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Zetlin, A., Weinberg, L., & Kimm, C. (2004). Improving education outcomes for children in foster care: Intervention by an education liaison. Journal of Education for Students placed at Risk, 9(4), 421-429.
Zima, B. T., Bussing, R., Freeman, S., Yang, X., Belin, T. R., & Forness, S. R. (2000). Behaviour problems, academic skill delays and school failure among school-aged children in foster care: Their relationship to placement characteristics. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 9(1), 87-103.
Published
2018-06-28
How to Cite
How, C. and Mohd Jan, J. (2018) “Gendered Voices in Addressing Academic Needs Amongst Foster Children From Multicultural Society”, Malaysian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (MJSSH), 3(3), pp. 38 - 52. doi: 10.47405/mjssh.v3i3.98.
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